


There Goes Another

by lysander_croix



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, One Shot, Writing Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-15
Updated: 2019-05-15
Packaged: 2020-03-06 01:16:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18840658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lysander_croix/pseuds/lysander_croix
Summary: Desensitization. Such a long and ironic word.





	There Goes Another

Life is full of surprises utterly dull and tedious. 

Sorry, let me rephrase that. Life is full of surprises, may it be a party, a new bar opening in the neighborhood, or finding a small gift on top of your office computer. Sure, they’re fun and exciting the first or second time it happens, but if the surprises continue on and on every day of every year, it falls flat. You’re not shocked or excited anymore. It even becomes predictable. For example, you look at some guy in the face, a young man named John Baxter who's too kind for his own good. He'll usually look back and flash a dopey grin with a flush on his cheeks, but the day he avoids all eye contact is the day a small present, in orange paper and red ribbon, ends up right smack-dab on the desk. So, in the future, the days he avoids eye contact are they days a present will appear. It's like an overused joke, once you've heard it, you know the punchline. (Knock-knock, who's there, orange, orange who, orange you glad.) 

Today, like most days, a surprise made itself known. Whispers had already predicted the inevitable, so when a blur whizzed by the communal office window seventy feet down, the only person to have any reaction whatsoever was the new kid, a twenty-seven and horribly flustered Denise Wallaby. She screamed and rushed towards the window, face slamming against the glass just as a cacophony of cars sounded below. Her face pale, lips trembling, eyes locked like headlights seventy feet below. I pushed aside my work and carefully pried her away from the window, one hand on her shoulder and the other gesturing to her desk.  
"Go take a break Mrs. Wallaby. I don't think your legs can support you much longer." 

Denise stumbled away quicker than a jackrabbit, and I took her place at the window. Of course, seventy feet down was a dented car coated in distorted limbs, a severed arm, blood, guts, and hair. Some had begun to crowd around the scene, the supposed owner of the car wiping the jumper's blood from their face. The body would have been unrecognizable if it was not for the shoes, or more specifically the bright neon laces visible from even seventy feet. Cassidie never left home without those old kicks. Even in death, they cling to her distorted feet. What a shame. 

The phone call came two minutes late.   
"The janitors rang. Who was it?"   
"Can't you at least guess, sir?" I replied.   
He laughed. "Matthew Dutton kick the bucket?"  
"Close, but not quite, sir. Dutton ain't due for maybe the next week or so. I got bets on his father's gun. Cassidie Rowe took the dive."  
"The neon girl?" His teeth clicked, and I knew he was grimacing. "And I thought she'd last longer."  
"We all thought that, sir. It's a shame."   
He sighed. "It really is. How many has it been off our building? Ten? Twenty?"  
"Thirty-seven these past two months, including neon girl here," I said, checking Cassidie Rowe off the list. "Maybe we'll hit fifty in the next month?"  
"If that happens I will personally take this entire building out to Keens."   
I signed the list and tucked it back into the manila folder. "Who knows. Maybe that new one, you know, the one with that huge rod, Embroide INC, will be the next jump spot."   
He let out a chuckle, and someone in the background, most likely his secretary, burst into a fit of hysteria. "Thank you for the report, Croix. I'll talk to you again in the next week." and with that the phone cut. 

6:00pm came around, and on the way out of the building, I gave a wave to the janitors. Cassidie's mutilated body was stuffed into their cart, and their garbs were covered in red. The janitor on the right waved back with one of the shoes in hand, the left only flashing a smile. I flagged down a taxi, and the forty-minute trip home became an hour, some man had run in front of a truck five cars up, and the road hazard had to be removed. Mentally spent by the day, I methodically went about the apartment and would have hit the hay early if it wasn't for the overflowing trash staring from under the sink, and thus began the most hated task of any day, the hike to the dumpster. I had always asked that it be moved closer to the complex, five minutes just to toss out the trash is too much for any person, most of the complex had stated similar complaints, but the landlord hadn't done much about it. To be honest, he didn't do much about anything. 

The hike was dull and wet. By the end of it, reaching the alleyway where the dumpster resided, my hands were burning, and my arms were dead. Hefting the bags over my head, they disappeared into the maw of the dumpster sounding something akin to a body crashing on concrete. I didn't think much of the sound, but the hairs standing on the back of my neck said otherwise. Something else sounded, like metal clicking against metal, cranking back in an almost cinematic way. Something was off in my alleyway. 

Not long after realizing this strange turn of events, a loud bang ripped through the silence and tore through my abdomen. At the mouth of the alleyway was a figure, arms outstretched, a smoking gun in hand. They melted into the shadows as quickly as they appeared. In a swarm of pain, I fell. One hand out to catch the fall and the other clawing at my chest, holding back the blood and grasping at the bullet. With one hand I reached for the entrance, clawing fingernails to shreds, a trail of red left in my wake. Just a bit further. Pull, pull, to the light, the light! 

Passing by the entrance of the alleyway is a man, finely tailored suit fitting soundly. Blood bubbling from my lips, I scream with all the strength I can muster.  
"Stop!"  
He pauses.   
"Please. Please dear God help me! Call someone, please! I've been shot! I'm bleeding!"  
He is staring at me, his face to blurry to see. His right arm trails to his breast pocket, and after a few fumbling moments he grasps something. (A phone? A radio?) 

The man lifts a golden pocket watch to his face, and with a loud yawn, continues on his merry way home.

**Author's Note:**

> This was just a writing prompt. We as people have slowly become desensitized to violence, and I hope that this is not a future we are destined for.


End file.
